Despite changes, more kids are dying

Martin Villarreal, 16, holds a picture of his 2-year-old nephew, German Alonzo, in front of the family's apartment the 4100 block of Culebra Road, on Sunday, June 5, 2011. German was struck and killed by cars Saturday night when the boy wandered away from his apartment.

Photo By Carlos A Pena II

San Antonio police investigate the death of a 2-year-old boy who wandered out of his unlocked West Side apartment and into Culebra Road Saturday night. German Alonzo was struck by two vehicles, one of which was an SAPD cruiser. Photo provided by Carlos A. Pena II

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Child Protective Services, the agency tasked with handling child abuse and neglect cases in Texas, underwent a major overhaul seven years ago.

Spurred by a rash of high-profile child deaths in 2003 and 2004 involving parents who'd previously been investigated by CPS, lawmakers funneled $200 million to the agency and instituted reforms.

Now the number of child deaths in Bexar County is higher than ever. In the past fiscal year, 20 children died at the hands of caregivers here.

The county also had the most confirmed cases of abused and neglected children in the state — 5,915 — more than the 5,493 recorded in Houston, which has nearly three times as many children as San Antonio.

Since the start of this fiscal year, Sept. 1, seven more children have died from abuse or neglect. Fifteen other deaths are being investigated. If all are confirmed, it would bring the number of child deaths to 22 — another record.

The most recent addition to this tally was 4-year-old Kayla Garcia, who died of blunt force trauma to the head this month. Her mother, Melanie Nicole Garcia, 21, and boyfriend Matthew Carrillo, 23, are being held in Bexar County Jail. Authorities suspect that the two beat Kayla to death.

CPS investigated an allegation of abuse in March and found it was unsubstantiated. The case was closed.

Of last year's child fatalities, 11 of the families had previously been investigated by CPS.

“Last year happened to be a bad year. ... There's no relation between the number of deaths in any given year and how CPS is performing.”

In an emailed statement, he said reduced caseloads, the use of specialized investigators in serious cases, continuous training and caseworkers equipped with better technology have reduced response times and made the agency more efficient.

“We believe reform efforts have been very effective, though it can be difficult to prove that, definitively,” Crimmins wrote.

More money has reduced caseworker loads — in Bexar County, investigators juggle 28 cases a month on average, versus a high of 78 in 2005.

The number of backlogged investigations — cases that are more than 60 days old — went from 2,567 in November 2004 to 1,508 in December 2010, a 41 percent reduction.

For Judge Peter Sakai, the most troubling number was 979 — the subset of 5,049 children who were victimized in 2006 in Bexar County, placed in substitute care and later returned home, only to be victimized again over the next five years.

It was the highest repeat victimization number in the state.

“It makes me think, what the heck is going on (at CPS)?” he said. “Not to blame them for all the child abuse, but we have to be doing a better job.”

Mary Walker, spokeswoman for the local CPS office, pointed out that while the revictimization number is the highest in the state “percentage-wise, it is in line with other major cities and below the state average.”

But in Harris County, the percentage of revictimized children was almost half that of Bexar County.

When asked the reasons behind the high repeat number locally, Crimmins replied, “We don't know.”

As for the overall abuse problem, Walker pointed to the economy as an underlying cause.

“You hear about poverty and job loss, all of which are stressors,” she said. “But if we could put our finger on it, we could hone in on it and prevent it from happening.”

The high numbers could be partly attributable to better reporting of suspected abuse or neglect by school staff, doctors and neighbors, she added.

In 2004, state Sen. Carlos Uresti created the Blue Ribbon Task Force in San Antonio — volunteer advocates who try to combat abuse and neglect.

Since its inception, the task force has worked to increase public awareness through block walks, billboards and other efforts, he said. A statewide task force, formed in 2009, will report to the Legislature at the end of the year on how to improve services.

The local task force's main accomplishment, Uresti said, was leading the outcry to get more money for CPS in 2005.

But he concedes, “We need to do better. It's not CPS' fault, it's the Legislature's fault. We're spending all the money after the (abuse or neglect) calls come in. We've got to provide for preventive services and wrap-around services for these families. Our safety net has holes in it.”

Uresti said the bad economy is just one factor.

“We have these young mothers and fathers who are lacking in parenting skills and often have no strong family support,” he said. “They just snap.”

Judge Richard Garcia of Bexar County's childrens court said CPS is working hard.

“They're hustling. But other factors have brought things to a boiling point — people are frustrated, money is tight, they're running out of benefits, they have no jobs because of the economy and so they're home all day. They just explode, and unfortunately the kids are getting the worst of it.”

Cuts in prevention

The story of Kayla's mother Melanie Garcia — what's known of it — reveals some of the issues common to many cases in which parents are suspected of hurting a child: A teen pregnancy. A prior drug arrest. Poverty. Alleged fighting between her and her boyfriend.

But apart from the social dysfunction that often underlies child abuse, advocates point to cuts in programs that address the problem.

The current two-year budget for CPS is $ 2.3 billion — an increase over the $2.1 billion in the previous biennium.

But money for programs that aim to prevent abuse — only 1 percent of the overall budget — was recently further reduced. Prevention and early intervention services for families in which children are at risk of being abused or neglected were cut by 33 percent in the past legislative session.

At the Children's Shelter, three prevention programs had money cut or didn't receive needed increases, said Annette Rodriguez, president and CEO.

For example, the Nurse-Family Partnership, which targets first-time mothers deemed at high risk of abusing or neglecting their children, received no additional money to expand.

“The nurses go into the home and work with mothers while they're pregnant and stay involved until children are 21/2 years old,” Rodriguez said. They teach caregivers nurturing and coping skills, such as ways to deal with a crying or colicky baby — situations that are ripe for abuse.

The partnership, which receives about $800,000 annually from the state, serves about 200 expectant mothers a year, but more than 20 are on a waiting list because of lack of money, Rodriguez said.

An adoption subsidy program for families that adopt children removed by CPS because of abuse or neglect was reduced by 20 percent. The money is used to procure mental health and medical services for the typically traumatized children to prevent them from being reabused in their adoptive homes or returned to CPS if their adoptive parents can't handle them.

The cut means the majority of parents who adopt through the shelter — 40 to 60 a year — won't receive subsidies.

“They made all these cuts to try and balance the budget, but it's taking services away from children and families who need them the most,” Rodriguez said.

For years, Boys Town Texas has delivered in-home services, including 24-hour on-call support, for parents in Bexar County who are at high risk of committing abuse or neglect. Money for the program and others like it across the state was eliminated, said Boys Town executive director Janie Cook. The program had received $300,000 from the state and served about 120 families.

Ultimately, fewer services translate into more children falling through the cracks, experts say.

“Any time you cut prevention and family support programs, especially on top of a bad economy, you have more child abuse,” said Kathleen Fletcher, president and CEO of Voices for Children, a local childrens advocacy organization.

Shortages in day care

Severe instances of abuse such as Kayla's alleged beating death tend to garner the most headlines, but neglect can actually be deadlier.

Twelve of the 20 child fatalities in Bexar County last year were linked to neglectful supervision or medical neglect, not abuse. Six of the 12 involved families previously investigated by CPS.

Walker said the community needs to be the “eyes and ears” of the agency. But she acknowledged that — seven years post-reform — it continues to struggle with staffing issues.

As of early May, there were 19 openings for investigators in Bexar County — caseworkers whose job it is to determine whether abuse or neglect has occurred — and 157 filled investigator positions. Last year's overall annual turnover rate at the agency was 27 percent, but the rate at which investigators left was 46.7 percent.

Walker said an entry-level investigator is paid about $36,000 a year.

“It's not for everybody,” she said.

The agency has 445 employees in Bexar County. Almost 10 percent of staff positions are vacant, compared with 6 percent in Dallas and Harris counties.

The current average investigator caseload of 28, while lower than before the reforms, is higher than the 12 to 15 cases per worker recommended by the Child Welfare League of America to lower the risk of abuse and neglect.

High caseloads are just part of the problem, said Sakai, who believes that the underlying causes in Bexar County include a shortage of subsidized day care and recent cuts to mental illness services.

“We see time and time again that these male perpetrators, often are not the biological father, are de facto day care,” he said. “And with every mother I've seen in a child fatality case, there was a significant mental illness that was either not treated, or she had no access” to services.

Legislators cut about $18 million in statewide mental health funding — $1.3 million in Bexar County — during the past legislative session. Combined with other cuts, this reduced local mental health funding by close to $5 million.

About 2,400 people have lost access to mental health services, according to the Center for Health Care Services, which serves poor and low-income clients in Bexar County.

Eva Esquivel, spokeswoman for the Texas Workforce Commission, which provides subsidized day care for low-income par

ents, said more than 1,700 children in Bexar County are on the waiting list. The number usually hovers around 2,000.

“We have more children than money available,” she said.

Uresti said prevention money must be restored if there is any hope of stemming abuse.

“We can't just hope parents will stop abusing and neglecting their children,” he said. “As a state, we have a legal and moral obligation to take care of these kids, these babies. They can't speak for themselves.”